My Genealogy Hound

JAMES E. WENDEL, M. D., one of the leading practitioners of Rutherford County, Tenn., was born at Cheek’s Cross Roads, Jefferson Co., Tenn., November 29, 1812. He is the eldest son of four surviving members of the family of David and Sarah H. (Neilson) Wendel. David Wendel was born in Virginia and removed to Tennessee with his father, Christopher Wendel, at or shortly before the beginning of the present century. The family located on a farm near Nashville, where our subject’s grandparents spent the remainder of their lives. In 1801 David was apprenticed to his uncle in a mercantile business in East Tennessee, remaining with him in the capacity of a clerk until March, 1806, when he married our subject’s mother, who was a native of that section of the State, and succeeded his uncle in business, continuing there until August, 1817. He then removed to Rutherford County and established a store in Murfreesboro, which he conducted successfully until 1839. After that date he retired from active life, having accumulated sufficient means by his frugal and industrious habits in early life to enable him to spend his declining years in peace and comparative luxury and ease. He was one of the most active politicians of the county in his day, and gained considerable local notoriety for his antagonistical views to Gen. Jackson’s administration, basing his views upon the grounds that no military man should hold civil office. Notwithstanding this opposition to Jackson he was postmaster of Murfreesboro, under as well as before and after that gentleman’s term of office. He was a strict Presbyterian in his religious views, as was also his wife, who died in August, 1838, followed by her husband October 8, 1840. There were few, if any, better or more enterprising and reliable pioneer citizens of Rutherford County than was David Wendel. James E. Wendel, the immediate subject of this sketch, secured a good literary education in his boyhood days. He took a common school and classical course in this county and then after a four years’ attendance at the Nashville University, graduated from that institution in 1831. Returning home he entered the office of his uncle, Dr. Patrick D. Neilson, under whom he read medicine until 1834, when he entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia and remained there during the winter and summer months continuously for a period of eighteen months, when his health failed him, and abandoning his studies he traveled rather extensively through the New England States, Canada, and finally returned home, but the following fall returned to the university, where in the winter of 1836 he was elected a resident physician of Blockley Hospital, Philadelphia. He held the position one year, when he resumed his studies at the university, from which he graduated in 1839. Returning home the Doctor entered into the practice of his profession in this city. And the fact alone that after nearly fifty years residence in our midst, during which time he has given his whole time, attention and energy to the success and advancement of his profession, and yet retains a large and lucrative practice, speaks more highly in his favor than words or pen can portray. Dr. Wendel is Democratic in politics, although he was formerly a warm advocate for the principles of the Whig party until it ceased to exist. He is a zealous member of the Presbyterian Church of this city, and is justly recognized as one among the leading and successful members of the medical profession of Middle Tennessee and an enterprising and reliable citizen of our county.